Over the past 20 years, ‘diversity management’ has become important to European institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Yet, many questions remain open. It is unclear, for example, whether diversity must be respected both within and between states; what tools the EU has to fulfil its mandate to respect diversity; and whether there is already a ‘European approach’ to diversity management. These and other similar questions are the core of this research focus.

A ‘European approach’ to diversity management implies standards of minority protection – an important focus for the institute. It is not always obvious what such standards are in practice, and their identification requires both analysis of existing law and assessment of the situation on the ground, especially because the implementation of legal instruments for minority protection is often problematic. Accordingly, the institute's research follows a comparative and problem-oriented approach to both domestic and international standards that pays special attention to the discrepancies between law in principle and law in practice.